xxxii. 1993

Early 1993 consisted mainly of myself writing material for my PENUMBRA project.  I got quite into it as this was a new leaf turned in terms of style and approach.  I was still struggling slightly with the new tuning system, almost like learning how to play again.  I departed with my trusty Profile distortion pedal, for a measly $25, as I was expecting to attain a new amp; an actual guitar amp.  However, due to a misunderstanding with my grandmother, whom I had worked for casually to earn the cash for the amp, the purchase was delayed and I was left to write my material without amplification.  This didn't really matter that much, in hindsight, because I write quite a bit nowadays in the same manner, but the idea of not having an amp and playing Metal guitar was beyond awkward for obvious reasons.  I recall walking out to my grandmother's house on Sundays and cleaning up my grandfather's face.  His Alzheimer's had gotten quite bad and he'd lost his ability to shave so he'd grow it out all week and I'd come by and trim him up on weekends.  It was a strange way to re-bond with him, looking back, as we were for most of my childhood like best friends.  As his condition had developed I felt a great disconnect from him, as if he truly didn't know me or I him.  During these weekends as 'the shaver' we were on a similar plain again, if only for a few months.  He'd accumulate quite a growth over a week, so I'd practice on him, giving him a handle-bar moustache or leaving a goatee on him sometimes.  Dreaded diseases then put you in check when he doesn't recognize or trust you one weekend and it's all over again.  On my walks home, on the tracks, I'd hum out my new riffs and try singing some lines, usually in the twilight during that mild portion of winter, and I'd be taken back to years past when I'd walk to my mom's house doing the exact same thing.

Clayton and I began to talk again at some point during spring, after I had acquired my new amp, a Hughes and Kettner 30 watt combo.  He had said that he had made some deal with a European indy label [Dog Eat God Records?] to release a 7" EP.  After conversing for awhile it seemed genuine and I began working on new material for the project.  PENUMBRA had dwindled into nothingness as the new material took form, due mainly to the fact that I no longer needed it to exist.  If MORBID DARKNESS was truly about to converge again I needed not to fill any void.  We had hung out a few times and rekindled our friendship as much as we could.  I had felt that the newer material was somewhat disconnected from the material of the past and in my ponderings had come to the conclusion that we should start anew and move forward with a new theme and incorporate new ideas.  MORBID DARKNESS was not just our band, it was rooted in our friendship and our common bonds.  Though we were still friends even after the conflicts things were different on many levels now, and I thought that it would perhaps a healthy idea to direct our new found friendship in a new found way.  I suggested to Clayton that we change our name to CRIMSON REQUIEM, and to take our lyrical themes into a different realm - one involving little or no religious tones at all.  At first he was quite receptive.  I had sketched out a logo which was well received and he seemed to be on the same page when hearing the new riffs I'd written.  It wasn't a week when he called to back out, however, stating his and his mother's concern for this change and so we went on, after all, as MORBID DARKNESS - with some of the said thematic changes.  In hindsight, this was probably for the best.  Or was it?  I will touch on this debate later, when things are more clear to the reader.

My mother had some problems mounting early in the year.  Due to some nosey neighbours in her area, who probably though she was a drunk - a common misconception when observing one who has Huntington's disease - she had been served an eviction notice from her pad.  She would move back into town, which may have suited her needs better anyway, into an apartment we later named 3545 DIVE.  I liked this because it brought her closer to me and made it easier for me to spend time with her.  The walk from town before this was quite lengthy and often discouraging, particularly during the winter months.  Now I could be there in 5 minutes.  I went there often, feeling the need to escape my father's and step mother's functional alcoholism.  I also enjoyed unabashed phone calls to Clayton here, where I could freely talk about things which I felt were held back in the presence of my father and step mother.  I remember John Greene coming up in the conversation more than a few times, a guy who had started working at Ebeneezer's - which was a mainstay for Clayton's and my used tape collections.  John had taken an interest in Clayton and was enthralled by Clayton's constant ramblings concerning MORBID DARKNESS.

During the latter part of the year Clayton had told me that John was going to front the dough for us to record our 7" in the studio - the same studio, I'll note, that we had wished to record in back in 1990 and 1991 but could not afford.  This certainly added some fuel to the proverbial fire and put me on a writing stint which I hadn't seen since late '91/early '92.  I recorded a few rough tapes for Clayton to hear and perhaps write lyrics for and maybe work out a couple of solos.  He seemed to like the material and these compositions seemed to be on the path to becoming our long awaited second demo.  Actually, it turned out that the 7" deal fell through, and this opened up more freedom with song length, etc.  I had worked during most of the summer at a poultry packaging plant, so this would help to fund the demo as well.  At some point, Clayton busted up his Morris Hurricane bad.  It had taken its beatings over the years but had finally come to its end.  I had bought the same guitar in a white finish a year ago and as I had some cash around now decided to present the guitar to him as a gift.  I took his as a future project [which incidentally never happened] and went out and bought myself a used guitar at Raven Traders, the same pawn shop I bought the Hurricane a year earlier.  It was a Profile, which for some reason I thought was a good thing.  The neck was like half cooked fettuccine, flimsy as fuck, though it did sport DiMarzio pickups.  A part of me wished I would have bought this thing for Clayton and kept the goddamn Hurricane.  It served it's purpose, however, and we ended up recording a DSV tape called 'Is Anything Worse?...'.  This tape served as probably one of the best DSV tapes ever made and really lightened the mood for us.  We also recorded a MORBID DARKNESS improv tape, titled 'Underground Warriors' [at least, I think this is the tape and title I'm referencing, as was suggested to me recently by Clayton during a phone conversation - two other unknown titles were recorded in 1994 and 1996 which could in fact be the title in question].  We certainly still had something together, albeit something a bit different than before, but it seemed to work and for the most part we were getting along.

The day before school (almost in the same manner as last year) we moved into a new house in the Gardom Lake area past Enderby - roughly half an hours drive from Armstrong.  I attended a new school in a new town.  What a change.  I didn't much care for being further away from my family again and most weekends I was taken back to stay an my mom's or sometimes into Vernon to hang with Clayton.  I made some good friends in Enderby, most of which I haven't seen or talked to in ages and whom I do miss.  I never could open up 100% to them, though, it seemed.  I was always of the mind that this new town shit would be temporary and that I best not get too attached to it, which in hindsight is strange indeed.  As it turned out it was only temporary in some ways, but I made great friends and lost a couple of them [RIP Otis and Chris].  Enderby had established a new facet in my musical journey, however, with Evan Panchuk.  We became friends in Music Composition class and began writing and recording class projects together on a cheap 4 track recorder.  It was a good outlet to have besides MORBID DARKNESS and it opened me up to experimenting with new influences on current material.  I played some of our tapes to Clayton, who of course laughed or scoffed, but which I paid no great mind.  We continued writing and recording up until my departure from Enderby in early 1995.

December 1993, during the recording of our 'Rehearsal 12/93' tape @ 3545 Dive.

At some point in late 1993, we had established that we'd be entering the studio some time in early 1994, so we decided to let off some steam by recording a rehearsal tape.  After xmas, I began laying the rough backing tracks on drums and guitars.  I had been given a Boss MT-2 distortion pedal which beefed up the weak overdrive channel on my H and K amp and I was really feeling that vibe.  I decided to quickly learn a handful of old Metal songs to include on the b-side as bonus covers.  Days later we convened at 3545 DIVE to track the main guitars and vocals live.  After recording 'Rehearsal 12/1993' we embarked on a late night photo shoot around town, with my sister Jessica shooting many of those photos.  We ate a turkey dinner that night and discussed our future.  It all seemed exciting again and it hadn't for so long that I simply relished in it as long as I could.  Things would change eventually, as nothing stays perfect too long, particularly where this duo is concerned, but as I truly do believe - it all happened for some reason.

CHRIS I. SHAVER, February 29, 2012.

Yields for 1993:

DSV 'Is Anything Worse?...' Tape [Status: Preserved on Disc]
MORBID DARKNESS 'Underground Warriors' [?] Tape [Status: Unknown]
DEMONIC 'Rough Morbid Darkness Demo Sessions'  Tapes [Status: Preserved on Disc]
MORBID DARKNESS 'Rehearsal 12/1993' Tape [Status: Preserved on Disc]
[This demo is available as a free download via Mediafire: MORBID DARKNESS 'Rehearsal 12/1993']


Top 15 Albums of Inspiration:

xxxi. 1992

After having released our first recorded effort even close to being worthy of release, we entertained the activities which would follow, and a lot of them became real.  We did interviews with some underground 'zines and began receiving the odd order for one of our demo tapes, usually by very enthusiastic and passionate underground Metal followers.  I immediately began working on new material which was direct lineage from that which I had been toiling over for the past 8 months or more.  I had found my groove and it was a personal-best level of output which was coming forth.

I got news early on in the new year that Clayton would be going in for surgery, at last, for his failing lung.  I could not help but take it all in on a bit of a negative bend.  My mother was deteriorating (though minimally when compared to later years) and that whole situation with her brother also being around now and showing evident symptoms of the same dreaded disease brought unto my reality an amplified feedback which was at times unbearable.  And now this; my blood-brother to go under the knife and perhaps he might not make it out!  It was certainly a horrific thought, and many cigarettes were smoked out in the fog and the cold, during those few days when I couldn't talk to him, in the shadows and in the dark corners of the property...pondering what may or may not be.  What a ghastly glance into one's future - and it flung me into a bit of a depression - but after hearing of the success of the surgery, my melancholia moved away from all that and into my own introspection...many questions of my own life and the future on a personal level came into being and I laid on my bed most nights in the early year listening to music and just wondering about what was going to happen in my life.

My recorded efforts were mainly done early in the year.  The first was an EP type tape which contained a song I had written solely dedicated to Clayton called 'The Ascending Sorrow, The Ascending Frost' [aka Sorrow In Frost] with rehearsal cuts on the second side.  I also recorded some other DEMONIC tapes, which included some cover songs as well as containing a lot of the new material I was putting together for the second demo.  In March, after Clayton's own work with DEMI-SORCERER, we decided to record an improv tape, under the moniker of APOLLYON SUN.  It wasn't anything much like our past material, perhaps more inspired by Clayton's solo stuff and maybe ORDER FROM CHAOS (which I was personally digging via a 'Stillbirth Machine' advance tape I got from Pete) than anything else we had done before.

By late spring I had written the second demo; about 60 minutes worth of material, what I considered to be great material, in fact.  Something by this time was astir, however, during phone calls with Clayton.  A great deal of negativity was tormenting him and in usual fashion, I was feeling the brunt of it in our conversations.  He couldn't seem to just come out and say what was bothering him, rather, he'd express it through some sort of metaphor or some rabid philosophy which often left me feeling opposed in some way.  At some point I stopped calling him.  I did not want to be unkind to him or to leave him in his despair but I couldn't relate with him on many levels any more - or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I didn't want to.  We each had our share our hardships but I no longer wanted to let them fuel my existence, which is what seemed to be coming across in recent conversations with Clayton.  I was moulting my despair and depression and finding new friends and activities which felt less threatening or contrary to my own well being.  I began to jam with new friends, even entertaining the idea of starting another band with them.  By this time I had adopted standard tuning, which left the material for the demo obsolete, as I hadn't yet figured out how to adapt it to the standard tuning.  'Enter The 7th Sacrificial Domain' would never happen: and it seemed all for naught.  I sold my first guitar [Hondo Fame Strat copy] to a friend and soon after bought a white Morris Hurricane, which was the exact model as Clayton had [his in a black finish]. We briefly got back into hanging out during the summer, and even recorded a DSV tape in the process.  Things were not the same as they once were, and as one should expect given some of the things which were happening, but something really felt off, like some magic was absent and was unsure if it wanted to return.

For the remainder of 1992, we talked very little.  I had moved to my father's before the school year started and he cared little for our relationship or our activities together as a musical act.  My move resulted in more than a few awkward situations when it came to many things in my life.  I hadn't lived with my father for at least 5 years and one might understand the strangeness of such an arrangement.  Of course, this did not stop me from communicating with Clayton from time to time or me from caring deeply for him and missing him a great deal.  Clayton had been assigned to exclusive band correspondence as I was needing to concentrate more on my education.  My grades were horrible last year and I was warned about hold backs and all that shit if it continued.  I definitely missed writing to the few friends that I had made over the last year and a half, but I hoped that Clayton could continue where I left off.  It certainly didn't look as if any recorded efforts would be released this year so I set my attention to a solo project named PENUMBRA and began to write what would eventually be a demo but which never went beyond rough tracking.  I also began writing for a 30 minute song, the likes of which I had been recording for the last 3 years in December, but this too fell short and did not make the production stage.  And though MORBID DARKNESS was not officially defunct during this time there was a lot of doubt and the determining factors would have to be the ones which were mutually apparent.  I'm not sure, upon reflection, what really was apparent between the two of us.  We were embarking on our own paths now, without one another to be at the other's side during any shit storms, and we each came out with different scars, different wounds, different views.  Eventually, next year, we'd repair our bonds and proceed on our path together and so would continue a roller-coaster ride on almost every level fathomable.

CHRIS I. SHAVER, January 31, 2012.

Yields for 1992:

DEMONIC 'The Ascending Sorrow, The Ascending Frost' Tape [Status: Preserved on Disc]
DEMONIC 'IV' Tape [Status: Lost]
DEMONIC 'Memorial Memoriam' Tape [Status: Lost]
DEMI-SORCERER 'Sorrow And Frost' Tape [Status: Unknown]
DEMONIC 'Haussibut Arise' Tape [Status: Lost]
DEMI-SORCERER 'Goat Feast' Tape [Status: Unknown]
APOLLYON SUN 's/t' Tape [Status: Unknown]
MORBID DARKNESS 'Enter The 7th Sacrificial Domain - Rough Tracks' Tape [Status: Lost]
DEMONIC 'Forests Of Equilibrium' Tape [Status: Lost]
DSV 'Question Mark' Tape [Status: Preserved on Disc]

Top 15 Albums of Inspiration: